No matter who dresses for the Knicks, it seems the results remain the same. Such was the case yesterday when the Garden got a jolt from the return of Jamal Crawford against his former employers, but the building went home disgusted once again as the Knicks were tagged losers for the seventh time in the last nine games.

While the names and a few of the faces change as the Knicks slowly get closer to full strength, the results don’t change for Lenny Wilkens’ beleaguered squad after yesterday’s heartbreaking 88-86 loss to the streaking Bulls. The Knicks lost the last two games by a combined four points to Chicago in a weekend home-and-home series, and it has not been for a lack of effort.

Yesterday, it was because of defensive breakdowns, because they didn’t hit a field goal in the final 3:33 of play, because the Knicks were too soft on the glass and because of a final two minutes that saw a six-point lead blow up in their faces.

Rookie Ben Gordon threw up an eight-foot prayer of a runner for the winning shot with less than a second left on the game clock when he came off a screen and caught Michael Sweetney in a mismatch on the wing. The former UConn and Mt. Vernon H.S. star, who scored 13 of his 17 points in the fourth, drove against the big man and somehow connected on an off-balance runner with what appeared to be 0.6 seconds left in regulation.

“He just floated it right over me and hit a great shot,” Sweetney (12 points, eight rebounds) said. “I played against him in college and I know he can hit those types of shots.”

However, the officials gave the ball back to the Knicks with 0.1 seconds left on the clock – which Wilkens did not dispute – before the home team ran their final play. Kurt Thomas received an inbounds at the top of the key from Jerome Williams as the buzzer sounded, which was not the play the Knicks called for.

With so little time left on the clock, their only hope to tie the game was on a tip at the rim, and so rookie Trevor Ariza was told to go to the hoop and Williams would get him the ball. Fearing a turnover, Williams checked off Ariza, who said he was open, and instead passed to Thomas for a broken play and a second straight loss.

“We tried to set a back screen on Tyson Chandler or Eddy Curry on the baseline, but it just wasn’t happening,” Williams said. “We wanted to throw the ball to the basket, but there was no way we could get it there. We just need to regroup and get a win on Wednesday.”

That’s when the Knicks face Toronto on the road and attempt to end this mid-season slide before it gets any worse. Yesterday, with Crawford’s return to the lineup and the Knicks taking a six-point lead with 2:26 to play, it seemed as if the dark days would soon be over. But thanks to Gordon’s miracle shot, the tough times continue for Wilkens’ squad.

In his first action after missing three weeks with turf toe, Crawford scored eight points on 4-for-14 shooting in 27 minutes of action. Stephon Marbury led all scorers with 25 points, while Chicago had five players in double figures.

“I thought we played hard,” Wilkens said. “We really did. The thing that we can’t do is give up as many offensive boards as we did. We played hard and our defense is getting better and better.”

Their luck, and the losing results continue to remain the same though.

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A January Joke

Since the calendar turned to 2005, Stephon Marbury and the Knicks have won just one game. A look at their month to forget: